Playing with fire - From the Ashes
by Luna Rubra
Summary: Kael'thas Sunstrider, the prince of the elves, is now dead. And before the eyes of the world turn to the threat to the north, Aiwyn has a chance to go on one more quest for her old Master. The world has changed, and if she once knew her place in it, now it's different. Who is she, in the era of the mortals? Warning: Don't feed the trolls! Or the drama queens.
1. Prologue

Ashes and tears. Once we have bathed in ashes and tears, drowned in blood and witnessed the darkness that seemed never ending, the Light is born. The rebirth of my people came with the rebirth of the Sunwell, a miracle only possible after madness, bloodshed and sacrifice. The madness of our Prince, who sold his soul to the Burning Legion; the bloodshed of a dozen nations that came to our aid and left our lands drenched in blood, be it blood of our allies or blood of our enemies. Royal blood.

And sacrifice of a pure being made of Light.

For all that our tears and suffering led us to, they may as well have been the catalyst that ignited the pool of Light, and so from our ashes, the Sunwell rose to the sky as a pillar of power, of golden magic. My friends told me that when they saw the Sunwell shining once again, the joy of tasting its pure Light was overwhelming. Beautiful power in its raw nature bathed us like the sun kisses the skin of one who's wandered too long through the dark, frozen to the heart. They said the Sunwell almost filled the holes in their hearts, despite the losses and the scars, despite the death of our Prince. No one could blame us for falling in love with the Sunwell, attracted to its warmth like moths. But something went awry in my heart. I felt like a cracked cup, and no matter how sweet the wine, how strong the Light, it kept leaking from the cracks at the bottom. Not even the Holy Light of the Sunwell could fill my heart again.

 _And then I walked away._


	2. Chapter One

Only dawn could provide the most precious shades of gold, lining out the clouds against the azure of the sky where cold winds often howled day and night. It could have been the painting of a blessed dreamer armed with the perfect dyes, but that person was yet to be born, who could make those fleeting, first moments of the day even more precious. Ivory towers gleamed against the clouds that nestled the floating city of Dalaran like the treasure it was, making this, in his opinion, the most beautiful sunrise one could ever dream of, with rich colors that only the sun itself could provide. Those were the moments he felt everything was lined up, exactly where they should be.

 _Irony can be quite a bitch_ , the mage thought to himself as he forced his gaze away from the horizon and started to make his way through the streets of the waking city, the last drops of dew already gone. A few years ago he had said, often and out loud, that if he could dig a hole in the middle of nowhere to call it home and bury his face in it, he'd be happy to do so. Spending the rest of his existence immersed in meditative solitude and drowning in burning resentment sounded good, especially far from _the great mages of the Kirin Tor_ \- those bastards, arrogant, power-hungry bitches. But things didn't go as he planned and now, in an astoundingly confusing and poorly planned turn of events, he found himself living in Dalaran, attracted to it. To the city, not the citizens, mind you. One could even say he had feelings for the place, but he couldn't be blamed. Dalaran unfolded itself around him in an explosion to the senses, the morning sun reflected in every neat, pale paved stone. The violet roofs of the white spires all over were lost into the clouds this early morning, and the charm the city of mages emanated went beyond its clean streets and pretty buildings. Magic seemed to have seeped into every brick and stone, although it would be a mistake to assume it was only arcane magic that made Dalaran beautiful: the fact is that the city also had some of that most mundane kind of magic, the one that seem to be at its highest when the morning mists cover the streets or when twilight paints the sky in red and gold. The kind of magic that inspired poetry, he thought, and that was highly underestimated as well.

'"FRESH BREAD, SPICED AND BAGUETTES! SWEET ROLLS AND CARROT CAKES!"

The baker filled his powerful lungs and gave his first shout of the day right beside the elderly mage, breaking that spell the silent city on its awake had and making his old ears ring. _Oh irony, you bloody bitch_. He shot a murderous look to the fat, pink baker, who greeted him with a smile, as if already expecting his reaction.

"How about some baguettes today, Master Hector?" the baker sounded happy.

"Only if I can shove it right up your ass," the mage grunted, making the baker laugh so loud it appeared his big belly would explode, his flour-sprinkled mustache all a-bristle.

"Always nice talking to you, Master Hector," he said, as the mage kept on limping his way home.

People were starting to get used to him - except, of course, that lady that covered her son's ears every time she saw him approaching - and he couldn't tell whether that was bad or not. Despite the fat baker, most Dalaran citizens reserved him the respect they would pay to a high-ranked Kirin Tor Master mage and got out of his way as he limped through the streets, his grumpy, pale face standing out amidst the flow, as he was at least one head taller than the average. His stupid leg was all that held him back, but as he turned one street he saw what he wanted.

Another young baker pulled her cart with her goods, the smell of fresh, warm bread rising from it and making several heads turn. She saw him at a distance and smiled, bending to her cart and already extending a package for him as he approached.

"Good Morning, Master Hector. One loaf of bread and a sweet roll, as usual," she said.

"Two," he said, handing over some coins. "Two sweet rolls. Keep the change."

The lack of pleasantries didn't bother the girl anymore, and it hadn't anything to do with the tips or Hector's loyalty as a customer. She packed one more sweet roll and handled it to the old mage with a smile, and then he was gone. Despite his constant grimace, the girl was one of the few that saw something beyond his blunt manners and curses, for she knew the sweet rolls weren't for him. He hated sweet rolls.

His large steps could be hard to keep up with if it wasn't for the limping, and so he cursed his leg again, for each time he turned a street, he saw the same man appearing in his peripheral vision. The hooded man didn't seem to bother going unnoticed: he had been following the mage since he entered Dalaran. Not that Hector was afraid of him, the matter was much more simple: he didn't want to talk to him, whoever he was. A few moments later, Hector grunted in relief before the sight of the place he was inclined to call "home". It looked like a round tower just like any other: white tiles, violet roof and a short, stone fence that circled the building and gave it a small, charming yard with a lush rug of green grass. The old mage closed the wooden gate behind him and walked up to the front door on a stone path laid out with perfectly squared tiles, and then stopped at the door to scowl at the unfinished ring of dirt around the building that was to become a small garden. " _Foolish girl_ ", he grumbled to himself, despite his features becoming softer at the thought of his foolish apprentice. If it depended on him, he would have none of that, but she insisted so much about the garden he'd rather tell her where she could dig before he arrived home to find out she dug the entire place in a chaotic fashion. Some budding shoots, held up tied to a stick, were already scattered all over the ring of earth.

"Odd girl," he mumbled to himself as he worked on the lock of the door. "I thought she said something about roses."

He shrugged and waved the thought away, entering the tower.

He wasn't alone as he would've been in his hole in the middle of nowhere; clearly irony was having its way with small corridor led to the center of the building, where a spiral stair gave access to the upper levels of the tower; the old man, however, turned left and entered the shadowy kitchen, where he found a young man in the process of waking up. The youngster had a faint ghost of a blond beard and short, dishevelled hair that reflected the morning light as he opened the window.

"Good morning, Master Hector," he greeted the old mage in a monotonous tone as he allowed the sunlight into the room, suddenly much more inviting and less gloomy.

"Such youthful energy," Hector said. Despite being a victim of irony, it wouldn't restrain him from being ironic or sarcastic. "What's wrong? Woke up at the wrong side of the bed? Or stood up all night waiting on mama hen to come back from her date?"

"I left your letters on the table, Master Hector," he answered with a grumpiness that rivalled the old man's.

"Hm-hum," Hector said, putting the bread and sweet rolls on the table.

Both men worked in silence for a few moments in the small, cold kitchen. Hector lit the stove with a snap of his fingers and put some water for the tea, while the younger man placed a vase of a weird looking plant on the window. The plant stretched its vines and thorns as if waking up, opening up in a beautiful red flower with sharp teeth when touched by the sun. " _You'll like it_ ," she had said, when she gave him the carnivorous flower a few months ago. " _It's weird and got thorns and doesn't like strangers! Just like you! Plus, it'll keep the pests out_." The old mage had to admit that her silliness kept him looking at his existence in a lighter, fresher way. Not to mention she kept him busy even when she was not there. If it wasn't for her, he would definitely have his head buried in that hole, away from the living, right now. Instead, he was preparing breakfast with her apprentice.

"You'd better get used to her habits, you know," the Master said, "You could learn something from mama hen and get yourself a date or two."

"Yes, Master Hector," Nathan answered through gritted teeth. "But I would rather focus on my studies."

"You could consider it a female anatomy study," the Master said. "Or male, whatever you fancy. That's what she used to say, at least."

"Yes, Mas-" the younger man stopped suddenly, looking out of the window. "There's someone out there."

"There was someone following me, yes," the Master said, letting himself fall on a chair by the table with a grunt.

"Hello? Master Hector Flamestorm?" the man called out, checking on a piece of paper and looking around, uncertain.

"What do I say?" the blonde Apprentice asked the Master in a hushed tone.

"Tell him to fuck off," the old man replied.

"But… What if it's important? The spells-"

"The protective spells will keep him out," Hector said as he went through his letters, throwing away the ones with the violet seal of the Kirin Tor without a second look. "If it's really important, he'll be there for a while. If it's not, he won't and I don't care anyway."

"Master Hector?!" the man outside called out again.

"B-but…"

"Let her handle him."

As mages, they felt each others' presence long before they could confirm it with their eyes - and she had the subtlety of a fireball anyway, landing with an explosion. Even the courier seemed to forget his mission when she appeared down the street and walked up to the front gate of Hector's tower, with a happy hop to her step. The only evidence that Aiwyn had spent the night out, besides her healthy, pink cheeks and happily idiotic smile, were the creases on her strapless dress. Her white hair was brushed back, and besides the flowing skirt of her dress being modest enough to hit the length of her knees, her bared shoulders and the cloud of a warm perfume that followed her made the man lose track of his thoughts.

"Good morning, stranger," the elf woman said.

"...Good morning," the man said with an almost imperceptible delay. He was vaguely aware he should say something else, but his mouth was dry. There was something intensely alluring in those green eyes that drank on the sun's fire, but while it was true that such a good mood enlightened a woman's features, it was not plain elven beauty that baffled him.

"Can I help you?" she asked while searching for her keys, without glancing away. There it was: that playful sparkle of interest, that frisky smile that curved her lips made all her mannerisms seem even flirtier. The elf only looked away when she bumped softly against the wooden gate and caused her keys to fall.

"Sure," the courier mumbled. "I was… looking for…"

"Is that for Master Hector?" she asked, indicating the letter in his hand and bending over to get the keys. The man's eyes inevitably followed the line of her exposed neck and wandered down - at least until she got up and he found her eyes again.

"...Y-yes!" he answered, blushing furiously like a maid. "I was told to give it to Master Hector Flamestorm in person. It's important. It comes from-"

"You can give it to me," she stated.

"But… I-I was told…"

"Or you can camp here, outside, and wait for him to come out in a week or two," Aiwyn suggested with just a hint of force, taking one step closer. "But I'm sure you must have other important affairs that need your attention. Don't worry," she added with _that_ smile, "I'm his Apprentice. You can trust me."

Nathan stepped away from the window, his grimace deepening.

"I thought she said she wasn't the diplomatic type," he grumbled.

"Handling people is an entirely different thing than handling men," Hector answered calmly, though his eyes narrowed before the young Apprentice. He wasn't surprised by the respect the young man reserved for him, the Master of the Master, but the shadow of petulance he showed before her…

"Handling men is natural to nearly every woman," he continued. "And it's far easier if they are as blessed as Aiwyn to be born with a good pair of-"

The front door slammed open with the crack of a cannon, and Aiwyn's warm scent invaded the cold atmosphere of the tower, bringing day where night still lingered. Her rushed steps scared off the awkward lugubriousness that set in, and unlike the sun, that brought light over the course of minutes, slowly crawling up the horizon, the woman wasn't nearly as gentle, filling every inch of the place with her presence, her perfume and her magic like a bomb dropped in the middle of the tower. She only stopped at the doorway of the kitchen briefly, smiling at the two men there regardless of their combined grumpiness.

"Master! You're back!" she sounded as she ran and hugged her Master, who didn't even get up and remained stiff as a wooden board.

"Day people can be so annoying," he greeted her.

"I'm not that much of a day person," she said as she headed over to Nathan and kissed him on the forehead. "On the contrary, my night was-"

"I'm better off without the details, actually," Hector interrupted her.

"Fine. Here's another letter for you to throw away, old man" she said as she left the simple brown envelope on the table. When her eyes caught sight of the package with the sweet rolls, she showed a wide smile. "Is this for me?"

"In my experience," Hector started, "women get a bit more bearable with some sugar early in the morning. Not that it ever worked with you, but I still have faith."

"How sweet..." Aiwyn sighed mockingly as she sat by the side of her Apprentice and turned to him. "So, Nathan, how are your readings?"

"I'm almost done," he said. "I wanted to read the fifth volume, where it shows how to-"

"How do you expect to learn how to mince without a knife?" she asked, taking the other sweet roll on the package.

"I'm not learning how to cook, I'm learning magic!"

"Everything on its time," she said, taking the first bite of her little treat. "Before you can make a potion, you need to know the herbs and learn to identify them, collect them, mince, stock..."

"But…!"

"There is no 'but', Apprentice", she cut him off in a firm tone, starting to get annoyed at his insistence. "And don't look at me like that. You'd better not learn from my Master how to scowl at me because that never got him anything."

"I'm finally starting to notice that," Hector said as he finished the letters he had on hand. Several envelopes with the look of invitations, most of them from the Kirin Tor, were simply discarded with the violet wax seal intact. As he got up to sweep them all in a big pile that would go straight to the fireplace, his hands met the brown envelope that the courier had just brought.

 _To Hector Flamestorm_

The moment he touched the envelope, a strange feeling crept in like a bad omen, too subtle for him to name it, yet he felt he'd been waiting for it for a long time. He could always tell when a letter brought bad news, and sometimes even where it came from, just because of the vestigial and subtle energies people left while writing. One would always transfer to the paper more than the written words, especially strong feelings. Despite some part of his mind being aware Aiwyn and Nathan kept on talking, their voices became muffled when he opened the letter:

 _Fariel is dead. You're the last one, Hector. May the Light be with you._

He read it once. Twice. He read what was written and what was not - what it meant, what it could mean. He read hopelessness, even if it was not written in ink. _Fariel is dead_. When you're around the world of the living as much as he was, death was more of an old companion that shows up from time to time to have some tea, and not that dark shadow that made the youngsters' heart clench in fear. Therefore, what made him freeze in place wasn't the death of a man he hardly knew, but rather what it meant.

 _You're the last one, Hector._

Deep down he knew that it would end up like that, all of the others - Fariel, Baltimore, Lucas and a bunch more - one by one taken out of the way until only he remained. The last one. But so soon?

Hector turned on his heels before the letters hit the ground and headed to the stairs, where he tried to jump three steps at a time, despite his cursed leg. Few moments from there the door of his library was swung open violently and he rushed through it without slowing down, paying no mind to a book chained to the wall that tried to bite another one laying just out of reach. Not always had libraries been such harmless places, specially a mage's one. Countless pages with magic spells, rituals and potions filled shelves that hit the ceiling, seething in restlessness, for the amount of magic exposure those pages have experienced left none unscathed. A weak beam of sunshine slipped through the window but the mage didn't bother to light up some candles, heading straight for a ladder leaning against a wall. Hector rolled it to one of the book-wall that was in no way different from the others and climbed it two steps at a time till his head almost hit the stone ceiling. Whispering a few words of power, he ran his finger along the spine of a couple books on the last row of the shelf, making magic runes glow softly in the dimly lit library. When the purple glow faded, the illusion of the books vanished in a thin mist. Where they once stood, there was a box.

There might be nothing more ordinary or cheap than a hidden niche in a bookshelf, but it served him well for long enough. Not to mention he trusted his magic to keep the box from anyone's attention. With it under his arm, he made his way down the ladder and put it on a table in the middle of the room. It was a perfectly squared, wooden box that looked completely normal despite a few runes carved on every side, too small to be noticed at a casual glance. There was no lock.

When he opened it, however, some of his long time worries came back to life, causing him to frown deeply. He was not the kind of person given to hopelessness, but he understood why the person who wrote the letter had felt that way. The tiny runes carved on the outside of the box had the purpose of concealing the magic energies kept inside, but when he opened it, a thin, green mist of condensed magic escaped. Fel magic. It infested the air quickly, radiating from the contents of the box in waves and making his stomach writhe in disgust. With no such pomp or luxury as a cushion or soft lining, there rested a single piece of crystal and a skull roughly the size of a human's. Broken horns popping from the skull's forehead and elongated canines marked it as a demon's one, but it still wasn't the source of that fel magic. The green crystal had a thin and long diamond shape, all of its facets inscribed with several runes, _except for one_. It glowed softly in pulses, mimicking the beating of a heart, even if weak. More than just magic twirled inside, he knew, and for the first time in decades he saw it as it really was: the cage of a monster, finally awoken and trying to escape. Some of the magic runes carved with caution on each of its sides were erased as if they never existed.

"Time had always been in your favor, ain't that right?" Hector said, as if talking to someone. He couldn't tell how much time he spent there, just staring at the contents of the box while his mind raced through the options he got at hand. When there was some shuffling behind him, he closed the box with a loud snap. "DAMN YOU, WOMAN!"

Aiwyn jumped back when the man yelled, with her heart trying to crawl back down her throat. Hector turned to face her with the deepest scowl he could muster, but many decades facing that scowl on a daily basis had indeed granted the elf some sort of immunity to it. Green eyes wide open with the startle quickly recovered the curiosity-driven interest that led her there.

"What are you doing here?" Hector hissed at her. "Be gone!"

"I felt fel magic," she started, trying to take a look at what her Master was trying to conceal behind his back. "I never saw you making such a face when reading a letter, too. Who is Fariel? What is that? And what is happening? The last one? What's that supposed to mean?"

For once in a very long time Hector felt he behaved like a teenager, doing everything that good sense told him not to do, like letting the gravity of the situation shine through. He almost couldn't blame her for reading the letter he dropped. Her unstoppable question shooting seemed faster than his rage and gave him the feeling he was about to face a lost battle.

"None of this concerns you. Get. Out," he said through gritted teeth.

"What concerns you is also my concern."

"You're my Apprentice, not my wife."

"It's serious, isn't it?" she asked, despite seeing the answer in his eyes. It was not rage that drove him, as much as he tried to make her think so. There had been only a couple times during their journey together that she had seen him worried. Truly worried.

"Master… What's wrong?"

Silence. Hector often found that silence was more meaningful and enlightening than a thousand words and so, late in his years, he found himself _good_ at evaluating what was not being said - long before Aiwyn crossed her arms tightly he knew she was determined to pester him for answers. So much was being said in that moment of silence, when Master and Apprentice stood tall and stared into each other without blinking. Despite the titles, they stood at the same level, with the same respect and same determination. They always found in each other the balance they needed, the honesty they wanted and the lack of bullshit they expected, wielding a smooth and natural Master-Apprentice dynamic that worked for several decades, even with an amount of curses that would make a sailor proud. They knew each other by heart and spoke with each other with their silence in a way few people did. There was no use lying to each other.

"Close the door," he finally said.

The elf did as he asked, and when she turned to him again, he took a step to the side to reveal the box. Aiwyn spent a minute or so just taking a good look at the outside of the box, running her fingers through the small carvings on its sides. With a final glance to her Master, as if asking permission, she opened it. Hector's expression got darker as he saw the sparkle in her eyes, the temptation written on her parted lips. A smile, so subtle not even he would notice if he wasn't looking for it. For him, the crystal represented the prison of a beast, but for her it was an endless feast of fel magic that had the potential to corrupt even the pure of heart. The relief was palpable when she straightened up, hardened her gaze and turned to him again.

"What's the story behind this?"

How she made a simple question become about half an hour of a heated argument was beyond him. He refused to give her details, but he couldn't deny he could had been more emphatic - she sniffed something troubling him, and used it to her own ends.

"What would you do if I told you this story?" he finally said.

"Is there something that needs to be done?"

Hector scowled at her, feeling like a victim of his own teachings. " _Sometimes the questions are more important than the answers_ ," he told her once, many years ago. He sighed in exasperation, pinching the bridge of his nose and shutting his eyes. When he opened them, she had already pulled a chair for them both and sat down, waiting for him patiently. The old man hesitated a bit more before finally sitting down. She allowed him to think without interruptions until he felt like talking.

"When I was young and stupid," he finally broke the silence, "there were a handful of people that believed, like me, that a single person alone would not be enough to stop the Burning Legion whenever it decided to prey on Azeroth again."

"Is that why you refused to be part of the Council of Tirisfal?" Aiwyn inquired.

"More or less," he said. "To be part of the making of a weapon, even a Guardian, seemed simple for me. Too simple. I could do so much more on my own… Something more than just make the magic equivalent of an empowered flaming sword to swing at the enemy. I could use my brains, you know? Most mages often forget about that option."

Which was ironic, she thought, considering the mage's strongest weapon is their mind. Then again, she thought back to some of the mages she'd known and, well... Their weapons sometimes needed a lot of sharpening.

"Baltimore gathered a group, handpicked, to be what he called 'Plan B'," he continued, "in case anything happened to the Council of Tirisfal or the Guardian. Of course we aided the Council and provided them with information, but they never truly knew where we took the information from. The Guardian herself couldn't care less about how we got our info - in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Magna Aegwynn knew about it."

Hector reached out to the box to take the skull, examining it while deep in thought. So many memories, flooding his mind in a constant flow...

"Her name is Z'navir. Baltimore was the one who presented us and first spoke of his plan. Z'navir was an outcast among her own kind, yet still a demon. He told us she was the result of some experiments within the Burning Legion, and while they made her to be a weapon, her performance was below the expected, which caused her to be discarded like a defective puppy. Her power did not reside in setting people aflame, truth be told, but to influence and misguide, to seduce and confuse. She is a master in the arts of manipulation. This," he indicated the skull, "was one of her many sons."

"And what happened to her?" Aiwyn inquired.

Hector set the skull back on the box, and after half a second of hesitation, he took the crystal.

"Rule of thumb," he said, while staring into the crystal with a deep frown. "Never trust a demon."

To expect atypical behavior from mages becomes a second nature for all those around them, or else living together could be a problem. There is, however, one fairly constant characteristic all mages share, that have the intrinsic power of bringing knowledge and problems: curiosity. Mages were often prey of their own curiosity. It does provide some predictable component to their behavior, though. Hector should have known Aiwyn would follow him, the same way Aiwyn should have known Nathan would spy on them, due to their curiosity.

Aiwyn ran after her Master and left the letter on the table. The Apprentice was smart enough to wait for Aiwyn's steps to fade far away before he read the letter himself. It didn't mean much to him, though. He needed to know more.

Nathan rushed out of the kitchen and carefully ran up the stairs. Unlike both of his Masters, his feet were light and silent. There were two basic ways of surviving on the streets, and those involved developing either light feet or heavy fists, and puny Nathan certainly didn't have heavy fists.

When he realized the Masters were arguing at the library, he headed to his own bedroom, located right above them, and went to the window. The library's window was open, so as he bent his upper body over the windowsill, he could hear their voices floating to him.

"...but when she betrayed us, we decided not to kill her," Master Hector was saying. "Not yet, at least. A terrible idea, if you ask me."

"What did you do?" Aiwyn asked.

"We managed to drain and divide her power into seven different gems," he continued. "One for each of us, you know."

"So… The letter said that 'you're the last'..." she said slowly.

There was a pause, and Nathan leaned forward, afraid to miss a word.

"Z'navir managed to escape after we stole her power," he continued. "Somehow, she still was connected to her power inside the gems. We didn't notice it right away, but in time she was able to manipulate the locks and seals from within."

"Didn't you go after her after that?"

"I tried to find her, as did some of the others," Hector said. "But they didn't seem to worry much. She was much less of a threat, with her power drained. Yet she was still hard to find and elusive. Later I found she actually set up measures to avoid my approach."

"Only you?" Aiwyn inquired. "Why?"

Hector hesitated, and Nathan noticed he stopped breathing. He could almost feel the tension between both mages.

"She was afraid of me," he answered. "She knew her way around the others, made them do what she wanted and made them believe it was their idea. But she never fooled me."

"Which is, I believe, the reason why you're 'the last one'?"

"Yes. All of the others, one by one, were taken off of her way," he continued. "Time is on her side, and she is patient. She set up traps, waited for them to die, seduced them. By now she might have recovered all of the crystals, but one."

"Yours," she said. "And if she can lay down the seal of the crystal from within, it won't be long before she can control all of her power again."

Hector remained in silence.

"Which means, it would be better for us to handle her before that happens," she kept on talking. "And since you can't approach her..."

"Don't."

"... I could go look for her, instead."

"Not a chance!" he said, standing up and starting to pace around the library.

"What you'll do, then?" she said, standing up too. "Sit your old ass here and wait for her?"

"I'll think of something," he said, trying to dodge her inquiry. "I always do."

"And when you're done thinking, it may be too late," she stated. "How long until she cracks it open?"

Hector gave it a thought. "A week or two. Maybe less, now that she has all others."

"Then we've got no time to waste! I can search for her!"

"You're crazy, woman. She wouldn't allow you near if she knew of your intentions. And she'll know them, don't fool yourself."

"Not if I used a lure she can't resist," Aiwyn said, and he could hear the smile in her voice.

Hector's voice, on the other hand, carried an ugly scowl and the shadow of a threat.

"You're not suggesting…" he started.

"...That I take the crystal with me? Yes, I am," she said, making Hector snort in disbelief.

"You don't stop surprising me," he said, "full to the tits with madness and stupidity."

"Some would call it bravery," she replied with audacity.

"I call it blind stupidity," he said. "You don't even know what you are up against!"

"Then teach me."

As they kept on pacing around the library, they stopped right beside the window, and Nathan feared they would feel his presence just too close. _Teach me,_ she asked, echoing the same question she made him decades ago, when she wanted to be Hector's apprentice.

"Teach you?"

"How to handle her," she answered. "Her weaknesses, her strengths, how to overcome them, everything."

Again, Master Hector snorted - but curiously enough there wasn't a witty answer ready on his lips. There wasn't the iron resolution he knew Hector had. The silence and suspense felt unbearable for Nathan, who knew they must had their eyes locked in each other, evaluating and thinking.

"There is no one else you trust as much as me," Aiwyn broke the silence. And it was true: there was no one left for Hector.

"You're not ready."

It was the same thing he'd told her, before rudely slamming the door at her face, when she first came seeking his apprenticeship. But back then she wasn't a hardened, grown up woman. She wasn't all the might and wit that attracted the youngsters and powerful to her Light. She wasn't a child anymore.

"Why?" she asked.

"You don't understand," he said. "Z'navir uses people against themselves. She sniffs for inner conflicts, fears, unresolved issues. She will know of your weaknesses, feed on your dreams and nightmares. And she will use them."

"Are you suggesting I have 'unresolved issues' she can use against me?" she asked, defiant. "Are you suggesting I'm not over Neph? Over the thirst?"

"You are not," he replied, "and what you do trying to conceal it and look stronger only make it more evident."

This time it was Aiwyn who couldn't find words or her witty arguments. For a minute that stretched into hours, she didn't speak. Nathan didn't even dare take a breath, wishing to witness the argument more than ever. When Hector spoke again, it wasn't as harsh and aggressive as usual.

"You think you can fool me? You can fool everyone else, but not me, Ai," he started. "All the nights, all the smiles and all the flirting will not conceal your confusion."

"I'm… I'm not…"

"No? Then why are you here and not with your people?" he asked, blunt. He touched the point, Nathan thought. All of Aiwyn's friends were confused about why she'd left Quel'thalas so suddenly. It had looked like she was running away. "Why did you turn your back on the Sunwell?"

Silence.

"Why not roses?"

"Master," she started, "if you think I'm not strong enough to handle this, then who will?"

Both of them were trying to evade the questions, and because of that the argument was extended to an unnecessary amount of time, with reasonings that kept running in circles. Nathan could feel the anger boiling inside his own Master as well, and fear and admiration started to grow evenly inside him. If Aiwyn could defy someone as old and powerful as her Master…

"I can't protect you from afar," Hector was saying.

" _I will not be treated like a child!_ " she said, louder, with the shadow of a threat in her voice. "I don't need protection."

"Of course you need it," he said, after another long pause. "You need protection from her, from those around you, from yourself. You need to think all measures in advance. You need to plan, to make a strategy and acknowledge your weaknesses. You'll be the outsider into her lair, and your time is short. You need to be smart, Aiwyn."

"I… wait, do you mean…?"

"That I might as well be talking to a rock!" he sounded angry. "And I'd be a fool if I couldn't see the advantages of sending you. Dammit woman! I know you! You would be gone on your own anyway, after wasting my day trying to convince me to let you go! You need to do _exactly_ as I say. Do you understand?"

"So you're letting me go?" Aiwyn asked, going from anger to confusion in a matter of seconds. Though the change in Hector's resolution felt as sudden, he faced Aiwyn's departure as expected since she entered the library. Expected, but he still didn't say it out loud, certain it wasn't a good idea, trying to convince the storm not to come.

"Only if you pay attention and do _exactly_ as I say."

"Of course," she quickly said, a new smile being heard in her voice, "I will."

"Aiwyn…"

"Yes?"

"This is dangerous," he said in a deep tone of warning Nathan hadn't heard before. "Not in a way you're used to."

All the threats and curses couldn't cover his worries and concerns. He wasn't comfortable with the decision, yet he knew there was no other way.

"Listen carefully," he said. "This is what you'll need to do…"


End file.
